Saturday, March 17
Today was a travel day—packing, waiting for the airport shuttle van, riding to the airport, waiting at the airport, flying, taking another shuttle van to our destination—so today’s post is all about food.
SeaTac Airport, lunch at Maki of Japan (located in the food court just past the security area for gates A through N).
- Plain steamed veggies (broccoli, carrots, celery, and cabbage) with steamed white rice.
- Taste: Mediocre.
- Portion size: Needs more veggies and less rice.
- Price: Moderate, $5.99 (excluding tip).
Kathy Casey‘s Dish D’Lish (located around the corner from the aforementioned food court, across the hall from Fireworks Gallery).
- Coffee (iced Americano with a bit of soy milk) and Sun Chips.
- Taste: The coffee tasted OK, nothing really to blog home about. The Sun Chips were good, consistently Sun Chips.
- Portion size: Generous for the coffee, the usual single-serving snack-bag size for the Sun Chips.
- Price: Cheap, $3.26 (sans tip).
Dish D’Lish had several lacto and/or ovo vegetarian choices, fresh as well as prefabricated foods. The Boyfriend had a salad with mixed greens, radicchio, dried cranberries, roasted hazelnuts, some sort of crumbly cheese (probably bleu or gorgonzola), and a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Other vegetarian choices included breakfast sandwiches with eggs and/or cheese, muffins, and yogurt/granola/fruit cups. Two items appeared to be natively vegan, though it’s hard to know for sure since the labels on the prefabricated foods don’t list the ingredients: Zesty pukecumber (er, cucumber) salad, and fresh-fruit cups.
Dinner at Cha-Ya Vegetarian Japanese Cuisine, 1686 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley (510-981-1213). Delicious, as usual.
I had:
- #14 Ten Bou. Lightly battered and deep-fried atsuage tofu and veggie sticks, including yam, carrot, banana squash, and green beans. Served with tempura sauce.
- #19 Moon Garden. Steamed tofu custard with broccoli, zucchini, carrots, shimeji mushrooms (they looked like oversized enokis), kabocha squash, snow peas, and asparagus. Sprinkled with gingko nuts and soybeans.
- Kiku Masa Japanese saké.
- #49 Oshiruko. Dessert; slices of mochi rice cakes in a warm bowl of sweetened azuki bean sauce.
Served at room temperature, the saké went down smoothly. Pleasantly flavored on its own or following a bite of Ten Bou or Moon Garden, its dryness clashed with the sweet dessert. To get around that, I cleansed my palate with a couple of sips water and then chug-a-lugged more saké.
The Boyfriend had:
- #17 Hagetsu and #21 Taku-Sui combination dinner. Hagetsu: Portobello mushrooms combined with atsuage tofu, lightly battered and deep-fried. Served with kiwi sauce. Taku-Sui: Gyoza (potstickers), tofu, zucchini, napa cabbage, snap peas, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, and clear noodles floating in a flavorful broth. Served with ponzu (citrus and soy) sauce. Accompanied by miso soup, sunomono (cucumber and seaweed) salad, and steamed white rice.
Plum wine.
- #52 Yellow Moon. Dessert; chunks of deep-fried banana topped with green tea sauce and sweetened azuki bean sauce.
TB also ordered some shiitake mushroom sushi. Somehow, the chefs missed this. Not a problem, as TB had plenty to eat without the sushi and enough room left for dessert.
Speaking of dessert: I don’t recommend the Yellow Moon after a deep-fried appetizer or main course; it’s too heavy. I had two bites of TB’s Yellow Moon—too much after my tempura.
- Taste: Wonderful.
- Presentation: Elegant.
- Portion size: Perfectly adequate, especially when ordering two or more items and/or a combo and/or when sharing.
- Price: Moderate edging toward expensive, $53 (excluding tip).
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